


i like my body

by femmethem



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Everyone is Trans, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, Trans Character, trans awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:17:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7846558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmethem/pseuds/femmethem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has noticed for some time that while Ronan seems to be getting more comfortable every day, he’s been feeling gradually stranger in his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i like my body

**Author's Note:**

> title from the poem "i like my body" by e. e. cummings, which vaguely inspired this fic. in order to fully get into the mood, listen to the entirety of the front bottoms discography. cw/tw for gender dysphoria, brief references to adam's past, mentions of gender confirmation surgery, and non-graphic descriptions of sex. in addition, i'd just like to say that i am but one trans person and the experiences of these characters certainly don't represent the experiences of all trans people. okay, enjoy!

The first time one of them leaves a mark, it’s almost completely an accident. Ronan gets carried away lavishing attention at the meeting of Adam’s neck and shoulder, and later there is a faint red splotch in that very spot. He doesn’t notice it until he’s brushing his teeth before he leaves for work. As he kisses Ronan goodbye at the door, he comments on it as casually as possible, “Nice leech action earlier.” Adam swivels his head to the side, baring the little mark to Ronan.

Ronan looks embarrassed, which on him is really just one of many variations on “mad.” He won’t meet Adam’s eyes when he snaps, “Sorry, won’t happen again.”

And maybe Adam should have expected he’d take it this way; physicality between the two of them has been a slow, rambling journey, ironically nowhere near as natural as it had felt with Blue. They still haven’t done anything more than clumsily feel each other other up in the midst of a heavy makeout session. Any verbal acknowledgment of it by either of them usually makes the other respond with teeth and claws bared, ready for a fight. “No, Ronan,” Adam says, trying for a tone that could be described as earnest, “Really- nice.”

  
It’s still not enough, still awkward in the way words usually are between them. Their flirtation had been about actions and spontaneous gestures for so long that it sometimes feels like things get lost in translation. When Adam had asked Gansey about it, his sage advice had been, “If you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be doing it.” And Adam wants to be doing it, wants to be doing even more of it, so he bravely struggles through moments like this one.

Ronan’s face breaks into something more open and unreadable, and he gives Adam one more kiss before shoving him out the door. On opposite sides of the Barn’s walls, they are both smiling.

  
From that point on, Ronan and Adam rarely appear in public without a few hickeys between the two of them. The others give them shit for it almost constantly, but Adam just rolls his eyes because he doesn’t have words to describe how good it feels to have bruises that his friends can joke about, how it feels like he and Ronan might belong to each other in a way that isn’t completely terrifying.

  
-

  
In January, Ronan gets top surgery as a Christmas present to himself. The surgeon is in DC, so he stays with the Ganseys while Gansey is up there for the winter break. Adam asks if Ronan wants him there, but he shakes his head and gives Adam’s hand a squeeze where it’s held between them on the couch. He doesn’t explain too much, probably can’t, but Adam figures he understands some of his reasoning. They’ve been working on it, but they still struggle with being vulnerable in front of each other, and Adam feels uncomfortable with any behavior that could be described as “nurturing.” Gansey had been taking care of Ronan a lot longer, and he’d gotten his own top surgery more than a year before.

  
When he comes back to the Barns nearly a week afterwards, Adam is anxiously waiting at the kitchen table with Opal, who is chomping on a fork and kicking her hooves. The Pig pulls up, and he rushes to the door to see Ronan slowly pushing himself out of the car while Gansey carries his bag and fusses over him.

“Remember, Opal, no tackling.”

  
She snorts, clearly of the opinion that tackling should always be allowed. “How long?” she whines.

  
“Two weeks. At least.” Opal throws the fork angrily but comes to stand by the door regardless.

  
Ronan grins when he comes in, even after Gansey starts nagging him and overloading Adam with care-giving instructions. He waits until Opal has given Ronan a surprisingly sweet hug to say his own hello. It’s just a light kiss, a whispered “welcome home,” in his ear, but when he pulls back, both Ronan and Gansey are looking at him with utter delight.

  
“Stop making it weird,” he reprimands, leading the way into the living room so that no one can see the way his face has heated up. Ronan takes the couch, lies down with his feet in the air so Adam can slide under them, put his feet in his lap.

  
Gansey settles in an armchair, says seriously, “I’m just so happy for you two. You know, this is exactly the sort of fluffy human interest story they put on local news networks, and it’s happening to you. That’s exciting!” Ronan and Adam sneak a look at each other that says exactly what they think of that, and Adam has to hold back a laugh. A transgender fluff piece on local news would probably have a lot less dangerous magic, death, near-death experiences, and a lot more parents and heterosexuality.

  
“Well, I’m just saying that I think it’s nice. Things haven’t worked out half-bad is all,” Gansey continues, “Certainly not as terribly as they could have.”

  
“You’re right, Gansey,” Adam says, “We’re just being assholes.”

  
Gansey stays for a while, until it’s obvious he’s just being polite by pretending he wouldn’t much rather be getting an enthusiastic welcome back from a certain tiny fashion disaster. “Tell Blue we say hi,” Adam says as Gansey is leaving.

  
“Tell them to go to hell,” Ronan adds with a small smile.

  
The last thing Gansey says before he goes is, “I certainly will not.”

  
After Adam makes a lazy dinner of instant mac and cheese and gets Opal in bed, Ronan gestures to him, says “C’mon.” He follows him up to the bathroom, where Ronan starts unpacking the paper bag full of ointment and dressing Gansey had left there earlier. He starts to roll up his t-shirt and stops halfway, admits, “My arms don’t really move that far yet.” Adam tugs it the rest of the way up and off for him.

  
It’s not the first time he’s seen Ronan shirtless, but it is the first time Ronan doesn’t immediately curl up on himself or switch the focus to Adam instead. His chest is still bandaged and a little swollen, but he looks good. The context isn’t quite right for Adam to get worked up about it, but he admits to himself that his boyfriend is more than a little okay-looking. “You’re gonna have to get used to this glorious sight, Parrish. Soon I’m gonna be strutting all over the place half-naked. Never wearing a shirt again,” Ronan jokes when the silence stretches on a beat too long.

  
Adam starts peeling away the first bandage, maybe a little too harsh at first. “It’s January. You’ll freeze your newly-placed nipples right off.”

  
Ronan’s hands come up almost reflexively in a protective gesture. He huffs, “You’re just jealous.” It doesn’t really make sense, but the comeback sits with Adam as he finishes cleaning the incisions and changing the bandages.

  
He isn’t jealous of Ronan’s new chest per say, but he has noticed for some time that while Ronan seems to be getting more comfortable every day, he’s been feeling gradually stranger in his skin.

  
Over the past few months, he’s been more and more aware of his body with each passing day. Maybe it started with Cabeswater vanishing or with being in a relationship or the way his chest and shoulders seem to be broadening out. Maybe he just has too much time to think about himself now that all of his spare time isn’t dedicated to hunting for Glendower. Whatever the cause, Adam’s body feels at once the most his that it ever has and the most alien from himself that he can ever remember.

  
They sleep in the same bed that night, eager for more time together even if it’s spent unconscious. Adam tries not to get too close to where Ronan lies on his back, anxious about disrupting his healing, but he slides their hands together and holds on tight.

  
-

  
They get better at the physical stuff slowly and steadily, to the point where Adam would even call it a major component of their relationship, but they stay firmly planted at second base for almost six months. There’s Ronan’s weird Catholic guilt, Adam’s overtaxed schedule, and both of their individual body issues to contend with. Adam can’t say he hasn’t thought about it- it’s actually become sort of an obsession. He’s lost precious sleep thinking about how it would happen: what actual acts would be performed, how it would feel, what Ronan would look like in that final moment as he tipped over the edge. He’s a planner, and sex is no exception.

But the thing about Ronan-the thing about Adam with Ronan-that he should have accounted for is the recklessness, the spontaneity. When it happens, it’s almost completely different than he had envisioned.

  
They’ve been having a lethargic day at the Barns. No homework, no odd jobs around the farm, just catching up on sleep and heating up leftovers. There’s been a series of movies playing on the television in the living room, but Adam has missed large chunks of every single one for trading lazy, sloppy kisses with Ronan on the couch. Opal had been sitting on the floor with Declan’s old Lincoln Logs for the first movie, but had left shouting and making sounds of disgust once the kissing had started. It doesn’t feel like it’s building up to anything, going anywhere, until Ronan comments, faux-casually, “We could be doing this upstairs.”

Adam adopts the same tone when he adds, “In an actual bed.”

  
“With a door that locks,” Ronan smirks, now that he’s sure they’re on the same page.

  
It takes them a while to actually get upstairs to Ronan’s room, to remove clothing, to get into a workable position on the bed.

  
Then Ronan zeroes in on Adam with laser focus, building him up first with his hand, then with his mouth. It’s good (really good), but there are still moments when he starts to get uncomfortable with the attention. He keeps turning his head to the pillow next to him, only to remind himself that Ronan is on top of him, below him, not at his side. Then Ronan will pause and grin up at him, and his stomach settles, and he can just let himself feel good.

  
When he finishes, Ronan crawls back up to his side and collapses, face down in his pillow. Adam presses kisses onto his shoulder, his bicep, his shoulder blade- anywhere he can reach while his bones still feel like jelly. Ronan turns his head, says, “I’m good.”

  
“I know. Are you looking for a performance review or something?” Adam teases between kisses.

  
Ronan groans. “No, asshole. I mean- ugh.” He buries his face into the pillow again, speaks out of the side of his mouth, “You can return the favor tomorrow or next time or whatever. Right now- I’m good.”

  
Something about that doesn’t sit right with Adam. It’s hard not to think of this as a one-sided exchange, a debt that hasn’t been properly paid, even if he knows rationally that it was a gift Ronan gave without any expectation of reciprocation. As if he can hear the gears working in Adam’s brain, Ronan continues with difficulty, “Look, it’s like- It’s- I- you.” He pauses, sighs, cracks a single eye to look at Adam, “Being with you, getting you off- that gets me off, okay? You make me feel like I’m getting off with the body I wish I had.”

  
He hadn’t thought of it that way. He isn’t sure he gets it, but Adam never leaves something alone until he understands completely. “Is that… enough?”  
“I mean, not always. I still fucking want you, okay? But tonight, just let me savor this shit.”

  
“Okay.”

“Okay,” Ronan echoes. He wraps an arm around Adam, pulls him closer until he can just flop on top of him the way he likes to when he’s on the brink of sleep. Adam stays awake a little longer, puzzling out what it is about his body Ronan finds so reassuring. In the morning, he does return the favor, and he tries to suppress the overwhelming feeling of smug satisfaction it brings him.

  
-

  
The gang almost always hangs out as a complete group, barring romantic endeavors. Sometimes, though, Ronan starts to get restless and awful, and Gansey starts acting like he’s got a bee in his bonnet, and that’s usually when it’s decided he and Gansey need some special friendship time. Then things go back to normal again for a while. Henry says it’s what Adam and Blue deserve for breaking up their boyfriends. They say it doesn’t matter why it works, just that it does.

  
While the two of them are off on their very special friend date, Adam meets Henry and Blue for frozen yogurt at the usual place. At first it had felt wrong to go there without Noah, to act like nothing had changed, but a new normal slowly asserted itself as time went on. Also, there is only one frozen yogurt place in Henrietta.

  
Henry is trying to steal bites of Blue’s fro-yo which usually would lead to Blue wielding her spoon like a sword and Henry getting injured. Today, though, Blue seems distracted, and ze has free access to her banana yogurt.

  
“I’m starting to suspect an ulterior motive for this trip,” he says once Henry has eaten all of zir own fro-yo and about half of Blue’s.

  
“Huh? No!” She startles, then relaxes again, taps her plastic spoon on her lip contemplatively. “I guess I was just thinking about how it would feel to be the token cis person in the gang. It’s sort of weird, right? How all of us are this spectrum of trans identity and you’re…”

  
“Boring cis Adam?” he supplies. His stomach does a weird flip and he pushes what’s left of his fro-yo to Henry.

  
“No!” she says again, “I mean, sort of. Like, half of Fox Way is trans, and I didn’t really have friends at school, and now there’s all of us, and I guess what I’m saying is… I’ve never really had cis friends?”

  
“Preach, Bluester!” Henry cries, drawing the attention of several other patrons at the fro-yo stand.

  
Blue continues, “And I never really thought that a cis person could get it, could be so not-shitty about gender stuff. It sounds weird, but, like, what is that like?”

  
She’s looking at him so intensely, and now Henry is paying full attention too, and Adam feels sort of put on the spot. It had certainly occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t conventional for a friend group to be as diverse gender-wise as theirs was, but he’d always figured that was what had made them so intensely bonded. And he’d never really thought about what it meant to be cisgender. He stumbles looking for the right words. “Thanks? I don’t know? I mean, what’s it like to be trans?”

  
“A-damn!” Henry cries, “That is not the point of this very scientific inquiry. We are on a journey into the horrific and strange world of the cis mind!” Blue nods absentmindedly, but turns back to Adam with a strange, conflicted expression.

  
He shrugs, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. He wishes the conversation hadn’t taken this turn. He says, almost pleadingly, “I’m serious, guys. I’ve never really thought about it. I figured that’s what being cis meant: never having to think about it.”

  
Blue’s face scrunches up further. She speaks like she’s choosing her words very carefully, “I don’t think that that’s the whole of it, though. Like, yeah, I think about my gender a lot which is maybe part of having a more fluid identity than, say, Gansey or Ronan, but even when I’m not actively thinking about it, I feel it? I don’t really know how to describe it.”

  
This time, Henry is the one nodding. Ze says, “If I may, Blue’s Clues- for me, it’s a sort of like being hungry or being warm or some other bodily sense? Sometimes I just feel off, maybe I’m crabby all day for some unknown reason, maybe I just feel uneasy, and I don’t really realize it. Then it hits me later that it’s just time to try out some new pronouns because these don’t feel right anymore.”

  
“Right!” Blue chimes. “But, like, not always about pronouns. Some days, I’m just, like, more aware of my gender and my dysphoria.”

  
“Oh.” Adam feels prickly, like his skin is stretched too tight, and then he flexes his fingers under the table, tries not to feel that way because that sounds sort of like- He stands, looks at his watch, realizes he’s not wearing a watch, says, “I should get going. I have a shift at the garage in an hour, and I wanted to pick up some stuff from St. Agnes beforehand.” He’s sort of light-headed now that he’s standing.

  
“‘Stuff?’” Henry echoes, an eyebrow raised.

  
Blue looks worried, but she puts on a big smile for Adam as she goes to hug him goodbye. “I mean, if you have to. We’ll see you around. Take care of yourself.”

  
He rushes back to his car and tries not to think about how Blue and Henry are totally talking about him right now. About how cis he is, how he couldn’t handle their conversation because he’s a hetero-cis-patriarch (hetero?), how stupid he is for never thinking about gender like they apparently spend all their time doing.

  
Adam doesn’t even have work until that night, a graveyard shift at the factory, so he starts the car and speeds back to the Barns instead. He really had meant to pick up some of his stuff from St. Agnes since he has to be moved out by the end of June, but right now he’s craving the wide open grounds of the Barns so badly that he allows himself this small moment of irresponsibility.

  
-

  
Ronan finds him on the roof of one of the smaller buildings towards the edge of the property when he gets back from Monmouth. Adam had thought maybe he had heard a sound like wheels on gravel twenty minutes earlier, but he had been too stuck in his own head to do anything about it. He feels slow and sort of far away, like he’s scrying but in a closed, limited space.

  
“Thinking about jumping?” Ronan snarks, throwing himself down next to Adam. When he only gives a noncommittal hum, Ronan scootches closer and nuzzles his bristly head into Adam’s neck. The sensation helps a little, so he brings up a hand to scratch at Ronan’s scalp. “If you’re getting all emo over something, could you at least give me a hint what it is?”

  
Adam chuckles before he can stop himself. “Emo? It’s 2015, is emo still a thing?”

  
“Punk might be dead, but emo is immortal, dude,” Ronan claims, leaning into Adam’s touch. His breath is humid on Adam’s shoulder, but the day is mild. They sit and look at the grounds of the Barns in silence. Ronan doesn’t let it go. “Seriously, what the fuck is up?”

  
He gives Adam space to speak at his own pace, knows he doesn’t like speaking until the thought is complete. “Do you think I’m a man?” he asks abruptly. “I mean, do you think I’m manly?” He can tell it’s not where Ronan thought he was going with this conversation. He stills for a moment against Adam’s shoulder before relaxing again.

  
“Honestly?” Adam nods. “I don’t get much of a vibe at all from you.”

  
“Thanks.” His voice and his temperament make the words come out sour, but he hopes Ronan knows he means it. Adam has always been thankful for Ronan’s brutal honesty at times when everyone else wants to coddle him.

  
He shrugs, slips down until his head in Adam’s lap right as Adam’s arm was getting tired. These little intuitive gestures are probably the most consistent part of their relationship. Ronan reaches for his hand, kisses his fingers. “Is that all?”

  
Adam takes a shuddering breath. “Would this all be over if I wasn’t a man?”

  
Ronan doesn’t answer, just meets his eyes with a vicious intensity and keeps kissing his fingers, his palm. He feels like he might hyperventilate when he asks, “And what if I wanted to try ‘they’ pronouns?”

  
Ronan takes a moment, and when he responds, every word is deliberately enunciated: “You don’t need my approval, Adam. I’ll do whatever you want me to. Shit, I thought that was pretty obvious.”

  
He knows that. He does, but he feels like he’s still practicing this whole business of agency, of declaring what he wants and expecting to be respected. Adam says, “Well, I do. Want that.”

  
“As you fucking wish,” Ronan whispers, leaning up to crush a searing kiss to their lips.

**Author's Note:**

> this happened because i got emotional thinking about the year i turned 18 and the way i started to own my body and question my gender, and then i projected that on to adam parrish. that is all.


End file.
